Let's see - late in 1998 when I started my online brokerage account I bought a bunch of stock, including MSFT at around $30.

If I'd held on to it all these years, I'd see it almost double, then feel the gut-wrenching drop to below 20 during the dot-com bust - then from 2002 as the markets recovered, watch it slowly creep back to $27 where it is today, about 10% less than what I'd paid for it. With any luck by the end of this year, just when they're going to release Vista (finally), it might just get me back to break-even.

Now THAT'S boring. So much for buy and hold. At least I didn't buy any WCOM - that's NOT boring.

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